Marketing Messaging and Steve Jobs – What do these have in common?

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around.”

This quote really resonates with me. I work with many technology companies who developed some really exciting and game-changing products and solutions. They believe they are developing their product or solution to deliver a better customer experience, and they often do, but where they don’t succeed as best they could is talking about their product or solution in a way the customer or prospect will understand the value. That is where I come in.

Marketing is not just PR or trade shows – it’s much more than that.

When you are working with a good marketing person, they understand your technology, know the market, and work with you to craft a message that is understandable to your target market. This is the first step – writing messaging that takes your technology and talks about how it benefits users. The product benefits often cross a wide range of the company from the IT admin to C-level office. The messaging must show the benefit in business terms, such as savings or faster , and tailored to the audience’s pain points.

This is not the products features or technical specs, it’s WHAT the product does that solves the customer’s issues. I have a saying I use often and it is true!

All our customers want is everything to work so they can get out of the office and home in time for dinner – before their kids forget who they are and the dog doesn’t recognize them.

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If you can talk about your product or solution in a way that makes the customer’s life better, your messaging has succeeded.

There is a lot of cool technology. It’s born from the ideas of really smart people. Don’t skimp and not engage a marketing person who will help you talk about your product so customers and prospects understand the benefits.

Next – we’ll talk about how we use that messaging to take the company and product to market. A future blog!

McMahon Consulting is the vision of Kim McMahon. Many years of experience in the IT, compute, storage, networking, and services departments of companies such as SGI, Cray, NetApp, and Brocade. McMahon Consulting brings their experience, knowledge, contacts, and experience to IT companies providing innovative and exciting solutions that are solving some of the toughest challenges users have. Contact us at [email protected] for more information, or just to brainstorm!

About the author:Kim McMahon has done sales and marketing for more years than she cares to count. She writes frequently on marketing, life, the world and how they sometimes all come together.